posted at 9:27 pm on December 29, 2011 by Tina Korbe

After the Illinois state legislature passed a requirement that says adoption and foster-care agencies — to be eligible for state money — must consider same-sex couples as potential foster-care or adoptive parents, the Roman Catholic bishops in Illinois decided to shut down most of the Catholic Charities affiliates in the state. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened: Massachusetts and Washington D.C. both passed similar requirements — and many Catholic Charities affiliates closed down in those states, as well. The New York Times reports:

For the nation’s Catholic bishops, the Illinois requirement is a prime example of what they see as an escalating campaign by the government to trample on their religious freedom while expanding the rights of gay people. The idea that religious Americans are the victims of government-backed persecution is now a frequent theme not just for Catholic bishops, but also for Republican presidential candidates and conservative evangelicals.

“In the name of tolerance, we’re not being tolerated,” said Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki of the Diocese of Springfield, Ill., a civil and canon lawyer who helped drive the church’s losing battle to retain its state contracts for foster care and adoption services. …

Critics of the church argue that no group has a constitutional right to a government contract, especially if it refuses to provide required services.

But Anthony R. Picarello Jr., general counsel and associate general secretary of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, disagreed. “It’s true that the church doesn’t have a First Amendment right to have a government contract,” he said, “but it does have a First Amendment right not to be excluded from a contract based on its religious beliefs.

This is tough stuff. My instinct is to think that the Illinois requirement does constitute a violation of religious liberty — but I’m not sure. The free exercise of religion clause protects religiously motivated conduct as well as belief (e.g. proselytization, refusing work on one’s sabbath, even sacrificing animals at a worship service), so Catholic Charities is well within its rights to refuse to place children with gay couples and still operate. Because Catholic Charities can’t operate foster care services without a contract with the state, the denial of the contract on the basis of CC’s fidelity to the teaching of the Catholic Church seems like a clear violation of religious freedom. But the mere denial of funding — no matter how heavily dependent CC is on it for its operations — is surely not. Freedom and funding, after all, are not the same.

Either way, though, let’s not forget the broader picture: The decision of the Illinois legislature to initiate the requirement in the first place — knowing it would hamstring Catholic Charities, which provides essential services — demonstrates an appalling willingness to allow an adult agenda — the mainstream acceptance of gay behavior — to supersede children’s interests. The spokesman for the state’s child welfare agency has said he thinks the child welfare system Catholic Charities helped to build is strong enough to withstand CC’s departure. But it’s hard to believe the shuttering of so many CC affiliates won’t make the burden of finding a home for children in need even greater.

Then, too, research suggests the healthiest and most stable environment for a child is to live with a married couple. Of those born to cohabiting parents, the majority see their parents split up before they hit age 16 — and children living with a mother and her unmarried partner are more likely to have behavioral problems and lower academic performance. That Catholic Charities wanted to work to place children in that optimal living environment but now can’t is heartbreaking no matter what the reasoning for the new requirement.

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Gay Rights or the Gay Mob Lobby has gone to far. A state or government should not moral endorse or embrace social homosexuality as social norm if a Government and a society wishes to survive. A people survive by having real children, this only happens with heterosexual couples. Endorsing or supporting gay relationships sends the wrong social signals to the populace that the “State” does not have society’s longer term interest at heart.

It’s not a matter of Gay discrimination, the gays can live their lives, do whatever makes them happy, but when it comes to tax payer funds and favoritism government should be hands off.
Birthrates are already declining. Gender confused males and females are becoming prevalent on TV. It’s a constant barrage of homosexual references reaching out TV from Hollywierd. If you wanted to weaken a nation, what better way to reduce birth rates and general morality by embracing open homosexuality. Made worse when it’s within a Government. That’s a guaranteed formula for population decline and increasing timid or feminized males with weak fortitude. Our enemies love this as demonstrated by Wikileaks.

The US has a 2.1 child birth rate. This is just above the survival level as Mark Steyn has pointed out in his humorous book “America Alone” while Europe has fallen dangerously below 1.7. How does embracing homosexuality as a social norm help a society keep a healthy reproduction level? Long term, I don’t think it does.

Looking at the 2010 Census, the Central Mid West is already in trouble with population levels. Texas has been one of the big winners in Population growth. Homophobic blah blah blah. I have no problems with homosexual consenting couples. Just not in Government.

In case you have not noticed, but yes! it has always been a tenet of Catholic moral theology that those who choose to fight their sinful behavior, habits, and tendencies rather than make a sacred cow of their failings are doing the right thing.

I am of course taking into account that you are utterly ignorant of the differences between celibate, chaste, and continent and that you mean a man and woman couple committed to raising their child in a loving environment.

And meanwhile, all of the children that need loving homes will sit in emergency shelters.

Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: that you visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and keep oneself un-spotted from the world.

Who is helping more children? The Catholic Charity taking it’s righteous stand (that I do agree with morally), or the organization doing whatever it takes to not disrupt the children in placement?

I am very much a pragmatist on this issue. Homosexuality is a sin, however if a religiously based agency were to refuse to license all sinners, well, you can see where that goes.

samuelrylander on December 30, 2011 at 10:49 AM

So when we are called to save others, are we to deliver them into sin? Or deliver them from sin?

When Jesus said “let he is who without sin cast the first stone”, didn’t he then turn to the prostitute and tell her to go and sin no more?

Just because you are pragmatic, or just because the Catholic Church is called to help the widowers and the poor, doesn’t mean we are called to accept sin or to ignore it’s deeply negative impact on the lives of others. Be it in this life or the next. It one thing to sin and to repent, it another to choose to continue to live in sin.

For the purpose of being pragmatic about your faith, would allow children to be adopted by an alcoholic? A spousal abuser? A prostitute? How far should the church stretch it’s denial of sin in respect to your pragmatism?

If you were truly pragmatic, then why make your argument against the Church that follows Christ? Why not request that the State of Illinois be pragmatic and recognize the constitutional right of the Catholic Church. I’m growing tired of weak spined Christians openly accepting sin and proudly declaring themselves reasonable and pragmatic for having done so.

This is a pretty common tactic with religious organizations, and not just Christian ones. It’s very effective, but I don’t like it either. Seems very demeaning to use what is supposed to be sacred to you as an irritant to people you don’t like.

Isn’t it wonderful that the church believes in what it preaches! Queers are not the people that should be raising children. The church did the correct and proper thing according to our GOD’s laws. The only way to stay true to our firm belief in GOD is to refuse money from the government and avoid their sinful ways of pushing a queer lifestyle as normal on us

“In the name of Abortion, Homosexuality, and Racial Discrimination, Amen.”

Catholics are (very slowly) coming to realize that the Democratic Party is directly opposed to the moral teachings of the Church. The unholy trinity above is the liberal’s creed, and it does not mesh with God’s law.

There is a far easier way to get the gay-sex militant liberals that are polluting this thread to shut up.

According to studies, pedophilia has a genetic component; therefore, one can say that pedophiles are “born that way”.

Now, liberals:

– You have stated that no agency should be able to discriminate against people because of their inborn sexual orientation. Therefore, you must allow adoption to pedophiles, or you are discriminating and should be stripped of state funds.

– You have stated that you must be allowed to marry whatever sexually attracts you, and that anyone who says otherwise is a bigot. Therefore, if you oppose child marriage, you are prejudiced and a bigot.

So you’re a literalist? The kind of guy who doesn’t understand allegory? The kind of guy who thinks Creationism–oh, sorry, excuse me, ‘Intelligent Design’ should be taught in public schools, that kind of guy?
troyriser_gopftw on December 30, 2011 at 11:12 AM

I’m a literalist when the bible speaks literally and use allegorical interpretation when the bible is speaking allegorically. I know the difference between biblical genres and sound hermeneutics makes it quite simple to distinguish the two. And yes I most definitely believe intelligent design should be taught. I’m certainly that “kind of guy”

Frankly, I am tired about hearing about white folks killing their children or having mysteriously missing children flashed all over TV time and time again.

SC.Charlie on December 30, 2011 at 9:35 AM

Goodness me. What do you have against white people? Or do you just prefer to hear about black children dying at the hands of their parents? In that case, what do you have against black people? Please, be specific.

And before you start with the protestations of innocence, you singled out white folks for a reason. How about indian folks? Gay folks? Republican folks?

Of course not. You hate hearing about anyone killing their children. But you REALLY hate it when you hear about white folks doing it. Tell me why this isn’t blatantly racist. Or apologize, that would be good too.

Adoption and foster care are RUN BY THE STATE. They require licensure to the facilities and the individual foster and adoptive parents. The children in the foster care system, awaiting adoption, ARE UNDER THE CARE OF THE STATE.

The Catholic Charities are not allowed to operate independently, without the state. It’s comparable to doctors who are forced to accept Medicare and Medicaid patients. The revenues they receive from the state are NOT PROFITS.

Get a freaking clue, people!

This is nothing more than forcing the Gay Agenda™ down our throats and it is the gays activists who are forcing the Catholic Charities out of business, for no good reason. Why should they Catholic Charities cave in to this shakedown? Why should they suspend their beliefs and be forced to allow “Loving Gay Couples—SPIT!” to adopt children, when there are other services they can go to? We know the answer. It is THEY who don’t give a damn about these children, not the Catholic Charities. The Catholic Charities care about these children enough to not want to go into homes where the parents have a “lifestyle” that is against biblical principles.

Either call it what it is – Creationism – or don’t advocate it.
“Intelligent Design” is a cheap way of sneaking Creationism in by the back door, and has rightly been derided as such.
MelonCollie on December 30, 2011 at 11:35 AM

OOZING arrogance aren’t we?

has rightly been derided as such

By whom?…some other egocentric materialist liberal also oozing arrogance??

Adoption and foster care are RUN BY THE STATE. They require licensure to the facilities and the individual foster and adoptive parents. The children in the foster care system, awaiting adoption, ARE UNDER THE CARE OF THE STATE.

So what about children not in the foster care system? Why should CC, or any private group, that doesn’t take public funding be denied the ability to place these kids up for adoption?

How about you put down your tear-soaked hankey long enough to figure out what Secular dictates demand orphans turned out into the streets because they believe a behavior (which arises from an act of the will) is unnatural and both physically and psychologically self-destructive.

StubbleSpark on December 30, 2011 at 11:16 AM

Hysterical much? No orphans will be turned out into the street, but okay.

I agree the Church is right not to agree to new funding rules that compromise deeply held tenets of religious faith, but since adoption is a state process, then the state has pre-eminence in the matter. You give the state what belongs to state, in this case the authority to establish whatever rules they choose to impose regarding adoption. The people of Illinois, like the rest of us, live in a representative democracy, thus offering recourse by which the rules can be peaceably changed.

I’m a literalist when the bible speaks literally and use allegorical interpretation when the bible is speaking allegorically. I know the difference between biblical genres and sound hermeneutics makes it quite simple to distinguish the two. And yes I most definitely believe intelligent design should be taught. I’m certainly that “kind of guy”

tommyboy on December 30, 2011 at 11:31 AM

Seems to me the OT was very literal about the execution of witches. No allegory there. So what say you, Zippo or matches?

Frankly, I am tired about hearing about white folks killing their children or having mysteriously missing children flashed all over TV time and time again.

SC.Charlie on December 30, 2011 at 9:35 AM

So according to your world view through your indoctrinated Network News goggles, “white folk” are the only people murdering children in the world. Christian Charities are not the only place you can adopt children but they are where concerned biological parents or parties may place them with their “interests” at heart. Shop at a gay adoption agency or do the Hollywood method of importing children for cash.

I read your Amorality. Nothing is better and everything is equal. That’s seems to lean towards a liberal or Libertarian sentiments. I’m betting you lean Libertarian based on your comments of ambiguity between Conservatives and Liberals above as well.

All I can say is I have been to 4 Gay Pride parades and I have
never seen such debauchery in my life.

Two in Santa Barbara, Ca., one in Key West where a shop store
window had a gift basket which included penis shaped pasta, a
book store only filled with gay pornography and etchings, and
one in Chicago.

I was visiting relatives for the two Santa Barbara parades where
my relatives made it an annual event so they could laugh about it.
We were on vacation in Key West and accidentally were there at
the same time (never again – these gay parade people are insane)
and since I live near Chicago I went with friends to see what all
the fuss was about. We stayed for about 10 minutes.

I realize what I saw was the “extremes”, but, come on people.
Keep it in your pants – or at least behind closed doors!

Seems to me the OT was very literal about the execution of witches. No allegory there. So what say you, Zippo or matches?

troyriser_gopftw on December 30, 2011 at 11:48 AM

The OT was very literal about the execution of adulterers, too.

But then, wonder of wonders, as Jesus pointed out, the Law was meant for the time before there was Gospel. Now that we have both, as Paul puts it, we are “free from the curse of the Law”, and use it as a guide, curb, and mirror, rather than an absolute mandate.

The Law is akin to the rules a parent gives a child. As the child grows and develops awareness and experience, the rules become more guidance and less absolutes. This is the interrelationship between Law and Gospel.

So according to your world view through your indoctrinated Network News goggles, “white folk” are the only people murdering children in the world. – Egfrow on December 30, 2011 at 11:48 AM

Sadly white folks aren’t the only ones killing their children. But if you listen to the news as much as myself, you would surely get that impression. Susan Smith, Casey Anthony, the mother who drowned all of her children in the bath tub some years ago………….and on and on. Currently, how many missing children are now being sought by authorities are almost daily in the news?

One more thing; why should Catholic Charities be required to allow people who do this to adopt?

Oh, that’s right; if you don’t support dressing children as sexual slaves and taking them to a sex fair, you’re a homophobe and a bigot.

Wonder why NONE of the gay-sex liberal whiners here can explain that one? They can scream about Catholics all day, but they can’t say that gays and lesbians who do this are wrong.

I think that shows the point. They don’t care about childrens’ welfare AT ALL. This is about anti-Catholic bigotry, plain and simple.

northdallasthirty on December 30, 2011 at 11:44 AM

Good point. Also, it was mentioned up-thread that there were some statistics that indicated that same-sex marriages lasted on average 1.5 yrs. and that the couple had an average of 8 partners during this time. The obvious question then becomes: Why do they get married if they are not going to stay monagamous? If these stats are true (and I haven’t done any research to see if they are) then it truly does appear that gay marriage is nothing more than a stepping-stone to fulfilling an agenda.

All I’m asking for is for people to flat-out SAY they want Creationism taught, instead of trying to hide it under a bushel basket and sneak it in when they think the Evolutionists aren’t looking.
MelonCollie on December 30, 2011 at 11:46 AM

Oh ..now I get it. Like using “gay” instead of “homosexual” and “progressive” instead of “liberal” ? ?

Anthony R. Picarello Jr., general counsel and associate general secretary of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, disagreed. “It’s true that the church doesn’t have a First Amendment right to have a government contract,” he said, “but it does have a First Amendment right not to be excluded from a contract based on its religious beliefs.

Yessir.
Catholic Social Services does the dirty work that other so-called Christian (and … ahem, et al.) refuse to do. Primarily, because they (other religions and sects) either only protect their own, or they just ignore the welfare public of children.
I’ll be banned if I name the chief offenders so I shall refrain.

Exit Question: Who re-settled the Hmong refugees from S.E. Asia to whom America promised safe-haven and then left them behind?

Oh ..now I get it. Like using “gay” instead of “homosexual” and “progressive” instead of “liberal” ? ?

BigSven on December 30, 2011 at 12:00 PM

“Homosexual” is indeed a sanitized term for “gay”. (and I hear that used to be a synonym for “pervert”)

But “progressive” =/= “liberal”. Most “liberals”, in fact, are deadly poison to progress! That’s partly why I left their side, in fact. The last time they made any real progress was in the Civil Rights movement, and not ten years later they went insane on drugs and sex.

Currently, how many missing children are now being sought by authorities are almost daily in the news?

SC.Charlie on December 30, 2011 at 11:57 AM

I almost completely stopped watching TV and TV news and did some traveling and talking with people. It felt as if a great fog has melted away. Thank geeks for the internet. Where you can find multiple versions of a story to week through the bias B.S.

But then, wonder of wonders, as Jesus pointed out, the Law was meant for the time before there was Gospel. Now that we have both, as Paul puts it, we are “free from the curse of the Law”, and use it as a guide, curb, and mirror, rather than an absolute mandate.

northdallasthirty on December 30, 2011 at 11:52 AM

I agree to a degree, but that isn’t what tommyboy was saying/writing or implying. There is, for example, a pastor in Iowa who recently endorsed conspiracy theorist and Jew-hating rat Ron Paul. Turns out this pastor believes homosexuals should be put to death–not metaphorically or allegorically, but literally. The pastor was a broad-minded sort who believed executing homosexuals should confined to those states that have instituted Biblical law, excluding those pagan and godless hotbeds likely to disapprove of extirpating the resident gay population. I presume the Ron Paul-supporting pastor also means to execute witches, as well, since that’s also explicitly called for in the OT. My point is that the thinking behind such an absolutist, literalist position is emphatically not Christian in either execution (pun intended) or intent.

Further, those who feel the new funding rules are unfair to the Catholic Church are right: the rules are unfair, but these rules are the preogative of the state. Don’t like the rules, change them. This is not an example of state persecution of religion.

Catholic Charities in Chicago, had already ended foster care services several years ago, as they have in Massachusetts and other places, when forced into such a choice. This hurts the taxpayers and the children.

Some of the comments here imply that the CC is making money from providing these services. The government decides to remove children from homes and place them with an agency, apparently ones who do things more efficiently than the bureaucrats. If it costs for example, 2,000 a month, for payment to foster families and overhead of social workers to screen and monitor parents, this is the funds that the state is giving to the private agencies. Beside losing a network that is set up for this, you can be sure that overhead costs will rise.

I agree to a degree, but that isn’t what tommyboy was saying/writing or implying.

That’s exactly what I was saying. The old testment imperatives were absolutely literal for those jews living under the theocratic old covenant. Christians live under the new coveneant where “vengence is mine sayeth the Lord”. The Lord imposes this through the governments he specifically sets up according to chapter 13 of Romans. Nobody with a lick of sense thinks the Levitical imperatives were allegorical.

So the state can’t deny funding to a Mormon fundamentalist church that preaches and allows men to have more than one wife? In fact, the mainstream Mormon church only ended polygamy after the U.S. Congress threatened to outlaw the entire church.

Similarly, if that were trued, the government could not deny funding to the Rastafari church that allows marijuana to be consumed in religious services. And in the name of religious freedom must allow a woman to take her passport picture in a niqab.

Good point. Also, it was mentioned up-thread that there were some statistics that indicated that same-sex marriages lasted on average 1.5 yrs. and that the couple had an average of 8 partners during this time. The obvious question then becomes: Why do they get married if they are not going to stay monagamous? If these stats are true (and I haven’t done any research to see if they are) then it truly does appear that gay marriage is nothing more than a stepping-stone to fulfilling an agenda.

The stats that show an average marriage of 1.5 years and an average of 8 partners per year comes from the Netherlands. Gay marriage was first legalized in a western democracy in Denmark in 2001. So the best place to gather those stats are from sources in those countries.

Stats related to U.S. gay marriage is limited as most states still do not permit gay marriage. When seeking stats from gay-oriented websites, you usually find stats on crime against gays, percentage of population that is gay, and gay election issues. Those sites tend to provide little if any stats on the sexual habits of gays, which is telling in my opinion.

Other stats show that the average heterosexual male has eight sexual partners in a lifetime whereas gay men tend to exceed 106 on average.

Stats also show that gay couples that are actively fighting for marital rights tend to have much more successful marriages than their non-activist gay counterparts.

In the Netherlands there has been a sharp decline in gay marriage in recent years. The reasons given is that marriage was a social cause issue for the gay community. Now that they have recieved their full rights in the Netherlands, gays no longer pursue marriage as it is not condusive to the average gays life-style.

I fear the desire to adopt is also about accomplishing a larger agenda and not so much about loving a child.

Nobody with a lick of sense thinks the Levitical imperatives were allegorical.

tommyboy on December 30, 2011 at 12:25 PM

Where does the Bible say ‘Thou shalt teach obvious allegory as fact’? True enough, evolution is a theory, but Darwin himself stressed in the forward to his Origin of Species that faith and science–according to Darwin’s scientific peers who, unlike Darwin, were men of faith–need not be construed as incompatible, that his theory was not an assault on faith. Yet you and yours view it as such and promote the Book of Genesis as some kind of science textbook. You draw these immoveable theological lines in the sand and claim Divine inspiration for doing so, yet in the end do nothing more than attack empiricism, the accumulation of observable facts that lead to conclusions which explain how the universe works. No science worthy of the name asks why the cosmos was created. That isn’t its purview. That question falls within the purview of faith. Get it straight.

but, how can Churches be discriminated against just because otherwise legal behavior now involved government regulation or was impacted somehow by government spending? Catholic adaption policies have long been in practice and perfectly legal but now they can be required to stop being Catholics to continue facilitating adaptions just because Federal dollars are now being injected into state adaption machinery? The govt. is saying, “what you are doing isn’t per se illegal but we won’t let you (just you) have any of your money back unless you quit exercising your religion because we just don’t like it. It’s just Jim Crow directed at Christians.

The whole purpose of a religious charity is that you help with your own resources not with the government’s. The real problem for the Church is that it has to rely on government funding because so few people attend church and so few donate to the church. Church charities are now government dependent organizations. If they were not, there would be no issue.

Another problem for the Church is that they are on the wrong side of history and on the wrong side of freedom from discrimination for gay people. Since the gay rights movement began in the Stonewall Riots in 1969 the church has fought every single gay rights initiative, but has lost in every instance. Let’s look at the scoreboard:

1. Removal of homosexuality as a mental disorder. CHECK
2. Invalidation of laws that criminalized homosexuality. CHECK
3. Workplace protections. CHECK.
4. The right to adopt. CHECK.
5. The right to marry. CHECK
6. The right to serve in the military. CHECK

What has the church won or accomplished? A few delays, but never the actual outcome. The church won’t win this one just as they didn’t win any other battle against gays. Are gays smarter, wealthier, better organized or more politically connected than the church? None of that. The gay rights movement has succeeded because the people of the United States know what is right, fair and just. Something the church has forgotten in it’s attempt to preserve Dark Ages standards of morality.

You draw these immoveable theological lines in the sand and claim Divine inspiration for doing so,

You mean I take God at his word when he issues a clear literal imperative? Guilty!

yet in the end do nothing more than attack empiricism, the accumulation of observable facts that lead to conclusions which explain how the universe works.

No, I completely respect empiricism within its sphere. What I don’t accept is that the empirical is all there is, I do believe there is a trasncendent force apart from and above the empirical which Christians call God.

No science worthy of the name asks why the cosmos was created

Wow, Galileo, Newton, Faraday, Pascal and hundreds of other scientists aren’t “worthy of the name”? Whodathunkit?

The gay rights movement has succeeded because the people of the United States know what is right, fair and just. Something the church has forgotten in it’s attempt to preserve Dark Ages standards of morality.
Mark Ybel on December 30, 2011 at 12:59 PM

Wow, the normative established by mob rule. That’s the exact argument of the French Revolution. Might makes right.

It was a question. You’re the one that put forth the argument that all of this would be very different if gay was changed to black.

1) Are the churches receiving STATE money to fund their services?

2) Are the Christians receiving STATE money to teach their doctrine?

Yes? No?

That depends on how you feel about churches being tax exempt. They certainly are given preferential treatment when you compare how private business are run.

Besides, the issue was discrimination. A private organization receives no funds from the government and must also pay taxes, but we still have laws telling them they can’t refuse to hire a black person. I thought your argument was that the state has an interest in telling the organization this.

Am I wrong?

Catholic organizations are free to stop assisting with adoption or foster care services because of this law. But the State gets to dictate the law, and any religious organization with their hand in the till has to abide by that law if they want to keep getting that money. That’s the rules. That’s the way the Supreme Court has broken it down – you have religious freedom in this country, but if you’re receiving government money, there’s entanglement involved, and you have to abide by the government’s policies on certain things.

Unless I’m reading this wrong, this ultimately has nothing to do with the funding. It appears they’d be unable to operate even if self funded.

That’s the way things work. My objection is to Tina trying to frame this as another example of some sort of vast left-wing conspiracy to cram those icky homosexuals down Christians’ throats.

Vyce on December 30, 2011 at 11:08 AM

I didn’t read it that way at all. She actually seems conflicted as to the right answer here. I don’t know how anyone can read this the way you have.

I’m curious. Does religious conviction trump basic civil liberties in a constitutional, secular, democracy? If a member of a black supremacist sect wanted to not hire white people because they were inferior (melanin deprived) would that be legal?

urban elitist on December 30, 2011 at 11:09 AM

Not sure, but religious organizations have often been allowed to legally discriminate based on their religious beliefs. For instance, Christians churches are often not required by law to hire those outside their faith, at least for key roles where their faith is important.

Even some private organizations are able to legally discriminate if the discrimination is important to the job. So far, strippers are free to hire all women (or all men, if that’s the club), though I believe Hooters was successfully sued for limiting its waitstaff to women, enough though it’s clearly a large part of the chain’s appeal.

Forget funding. It wouldn’t even be able to charge those people with the crimes they’ve committed.

That said, there are religious ceremonies that require peyote (a powerful hallucination) use but are still, and the government has ruled that those who participate can take the drug even though it is normally illegal for the rest of us. So it’s not that black and white.

Wow, Galileo, Newton, Faraday, Pascal and hundreds of other scientists aren’t “worthy of the name”? Whodathunkit?

tommyboy on December 30, 2011 at 1:00 PM

I wasn’t referring to especially brilliant individuals pondering the infinite wonder of the universe, but then you knew that, didn’t you?

tommyboy, these pleasant little exchanges with you remind me of the story of the Aztec chieftain. The Spaniards were about to burn him at the stake and asked if he wanted to be baptized before he died so that he could go to Heaven. He asked the Spaniards if Heaven was filled with people like them. They said yes. He said no.

I wasn’t referring to especially brilliant individuals pondering the infinite wonder of the universe

Neither was I. The problem with the Aztec illustration is that the Spanish answer was a lie. As I recall those Aztecs recoiled at the though of burning at the stake – they prefered to cut the hearts out of hundreds of live victims a day so I guess their answer would work both ways.

Darwin himself stressed in the forward to his Origin of Species that faith and science–according to Darwin’s scientific peers who, unlike Darwin, were men of faith–need not be construed as incompatible, that his theory was not an assault on faith. Yet you and yours view it as such and promote the Book of Genesis as some kind of science textbook.

troyriser_gopftw on December 30, 2011 at 12:44 PM

I’m sorry to disagree, as I am a firm believer in the compatibility of naturalist reason and supernaturalist faith, but for all the live-and-let-live atheists agnostics I have met in my time, I have met more than my fair share of what I call “evangelical atheists”, who embark on crusades to liberate the world from the so-called blight of religion. Some of the premiere evolutionary scientists, people like Gould and Dawkins, have been at the forefront of such a movement, and Dawkins in particular publishes his books with essentially the overt secondary motive of using current science as a cure for the disease of ignorant, anachronistic faith.

Just look at the guys out in California or wherever, that made it a point to flood the city with requests for use of park space normally rented out for nativity scenes, forcing a lottery which (I will stipulate, coincidentally) came down heavily in their favor and which they used to try and block out the sight of nativity scenes where possible. One construct in particular mocked the faith of Christians by comparing Christ to Santa Claus, etc.

Whatever Darwin may originally have intended, a chief problem with reconciling science and religion is that science is being used as a bludgeon against believers, forcing them onto the defensive on a presumption that they lack the brains to believe anything they are not taught as dogma, the logic to form their own worldview, or the capacity to have a civil, rational discussion about the nature of these two disciplines. One has to overcome all of those hurdles EVEN BEFORE having the discussion about what one believes and why, and the merits of those reasons. That of course assumes the other party is willing to entertain the discussion long enough to see the human being on the other side of the straw man they’re arguing with, and that is a courtesy I don’t often see afforded.

1. Abortion is a right.
2. Homosexual behavior is normal, and morality is subjective.

When Catholics (and Christians in general) start coming to terms with this cognitive dissonance, the liberal assault on religion and morality will be stopped in its tracks. We are here in overwhelming numbers, but our ignorance, our divisions, and our fear of the elites has prevented effective action.

Until the time comes when bishops and ministers speak out bravely there are going to be a lot more Kennedys, Pelosis, Cuomos, and Sibeliuses elected to high office. It is leadership that is lacking. As always.

When Catholics (and Christians in general) start coming to terms with this cognitive dissonance, the liberal assault on religion and morality will be stopped in its tracks. We are here in overwhelming numbers, but our ignorance, our divisions, and our fear of the elites has prevented effective action.

That’s exactly what Francis Schaeffer was saying back in 1972 with his “Christian Manifesto”.

Neither was I. The problem with the Aztec illustration is that the Spanish answer was a lie. As I recall those Aztecs recoiled at the though of burning at the stake – they prefered to cut the hearts out of hundreds of live victims a day so I guess their answer would work both ways.

tommyboy on December 30, 2011 at 1:40 PM

For all I know the Aztec story is made-up, an allegory devised to impart a certain truth–in this case, to impart my opinion of your smug certitude you and your like-minded friends have a ticket to Heaven and all those who don’t believe as you do, don’t. Whether or not the Aztec chieftain in the story was a heart-ripper-outer is irrelevant.

It wasn’t a one time occurance, it was a centuries long practice. There are lots of centuries old, widespread Aztec pictures, drawings and paintings of the practice if you’d care to go look at them. It’s an incredibly well documented historical fact practiced by many of the mesoamerican civilizations – please go look it up.

We live in a fallen world. The best many Christians can hope for with any government at any time is that they don’t get rounded up and imprisoned or worse. Look what martyrs in China and Egypt are suffering and enduring right now, as I write. If the worse we American Christians can expect in the foreseeable future is the occasional atheist in our face or a hostile state bureaucracy, then we should count our blessings.

There can be no perfect harmony between governments and the Christian faith. There can’t be. The Devil wouldn’t have tempted Christ with the world if it wasn’t his to give.

But then, wonder of wonders, as Jesus pointed out, the Law was meant for the time before there was Gospel. Now that we have both, as Paul puts it, we are “free from the curse of the Law”, and use it as a guide, curb, and mirror, rather than an absolute mandate.

The Law is akin to the rules a parent gives a child. As the child grows and develops awareness and experience, the rules become more guidance and less absolutes. This is the interrelationship between Law and Gospel.

northdallasthirty on December 30, 2011 at 11:52 AM

Nope. Go back and check the OT law. The people who brought the woman caught in adultery were incorrectly following the Law. Not only the woman, but ALSO THE MAN were to be brought… before a court, not for public vigilantism!

By mis-applying the law, they were in fact SINNING. Funny how Jesus tells them that “He without sin should cast the first stone!”

It wasn’t a one time occurance, it was a centuries long practice. There are lots of centuries old, widespread Aztec pictures, drawings and paintings of the practice if you’d care to go look at them. It’s an incredibly well documented historical fact practiced by many of the mesoamerican civilizations – please go look it up.

tommyboy on December 30, 2011 at 2:00 PM

Oh, for Heaven’s sake. I know about Aztec sacrificial practices. Who doesn’t? I was referring to the Aztec chieftain in the story. He’s made-up. He isn’t real. When his lines are done, his character disappears from the bubble of suspended disbelief and fades off into the ether of memory. If I chose, I could make it a science-fiction story where a UFO from Altair-6 comes down and rescues our Aztec hero from the burning stake, whereupon he is teleported to the future and now sells real estate outside Albequerque.

You’re trying hard for one-upmanship here, tommyboy. How’s that whole ‘meek’ thing working out for you, anyway?
troyriser_gopftw on December 30, 2011 at 2:08 PM

But your made up story made no sense in that the person which is supposed to be the focus of moral authority is worse than the person he is supposedly admonishing. I guess the meek thing for me isn’t working any worse than the plank thing is for you.

I’m curious. Does religious conviction trump basic civil liberties in a constitutional, secular, democracy? If a member of a black supremacist sect wanted to not hire white people because they were inferior (melanin deprived) would that be legal?

urban elitist on December 30, 2011 at 11:09 AM

The first question has no bearing on the second question. I take the currently unpopular libertarian view that a government shouldn’t impose on freedom of association by anti-discrimination laws. I believe market forces and social norms are sufficient to eliminate invidious discrimination. However, a state has no business helping to fund an organization like the Catholic Church in its operational bigotry against gays. If the Catholic Church is unable to facilitate adoption in a non-hateful manner against gays, then other groups will have to be created to do that job.

I guess the meek thing for me isn’t working any worse than the plank thing is for you.

tommyboy on December 30, 2011 at 2:12 PM

I have no idea what you mean by the ‘plank thing’. And you’re still trying to somehow assert your moral and intellectual superiority here–a point of pride, I suppose. Give it up. I can’t attest to your moral state since I cannot magically see into your soul, but pretty much have your measure intellectually.

If the Catholic Church is unable to facilitate adoption in a non-hateful manner against gays, then other groups will have to be created to do that job. thuja on December 30, 2011 at 2:16 PM

Rather than showing hostility to sex perverts, the RC Church is showing love for the children, as well as for its Lord. If someone is unqualified to partake of the church’s offerings, it’s the church’s right to have set the criteria.

There are many criteria that would obviate someone as an adoptive parent in the church’s eyes. In a free country, churches and individuals are able to live their lives and run their ministries in accordance with their faith, or lack thereof.

Would you demand that the church commune non-members, or people who are at odds with the church’s creed? Apparently you would – unless you are just hell-bent on defending sex perverts no matter what they want to do.

If you’re going to be critical of Aztec heart ripping don’t you need to ask why they did it? Wasn’t it to appease a supernatural sky daddy so that he would bestow favor on the rippers? It was a religious practice of a Darwin-free society, the Utopia many of you wish for.

Would you demand that the church commune non-members, or people who are at odds with the church’s creed?

Akzed on December 30, 2011 at 2:23 PM

That’s actually a good point: if the church took action that contradicted its creeds and principles, then it would be derided as hypocritical. So you’re caught with the undesirable options of being criticized for not living up to your ideals, or for living up to ideals that they didn’t accept in the first place.

That’s actually a good point: if the church took action that contradicted its creeds and principles, then it would be derided as hypocritical. So you’re caught with the undesirable options of being criticized for not living up to your ideals, or for living up to ideals that they didn’t accept in the first place. The Schaef on December 30, 2011 at 2:33 PM

People rightly condemn priests who molest boys for a variety of reasons, including the hypocrisy of gross violation of church doctrine.

We tend not to hear as much about public school teachers’ child molestations, committed in an environment where Darwin reigns supreme. There’s nothing hypocritical about molesting children where the law of the jungle is the rule.

So you’re caught with the undesirable options of being criticized for not living up to your ideals, or for living up to ideals that they didn’t accept in the first place.
The Schaef on December 30, 2011 at 2:33 PM

Since scripture teaches neither side can actually life up to those ideals, I think the latter group is in a decidedly worse position.

Huh. So human sacrifice ended among the Aztecs once The Origin of Species was translated into their language.

I did not know that.

Akzed on December 30, 2011 at 2:37 PM

No, it ended when the Christians showed up and began their genocide against the native people’s of the Americas. I must grant that it was very nice of the Christians to allow them to join the club before exterminating them.

What matters more to me here is whether CC is receiving public dollars or if the state is imposing an unreasonable restriction.

JohnAGJ on December 30, 2011 at 11:19 AM

Both? Certainly, Catholic Charities is receiving public dollars — the same types of public dollars which might be spent on non-religious organizations performing identical work.

Now, the matter of unreasonable restriction is more complex. Should the State have the right to require an adoption agency to allow placement with all comers, or should the agency be allowed a freedom of conscience exemption to not place children with people they believe would not provide a good family environment?

We would expect that someone placed with a religious adoption agency would have some expectations on who would be allowed to adopt their child. We have heard on these pages comments from those who found Catholic Charities’ restrictions on who can adopt (heterosexual married couples) too restrictive, and have chosen to place their child with another agency. But, on the other side, are people like this:

When I found out I was pregnant I was scared and wasn’t sure what to do. I checked out several agencies and I immediately felt a connection with Catholic Charities. I thank God, my mom, the adoptive parents and Catholic Charities for all the support I received. Thank you Catholic Charities for helping me make the most important decision in my life. My Little One will now grow up in a loving two parent home, as well as knowing me.
– Bobbie

This battle for freedom of conscience is being fought on many fronts. Abortion. Sodomy.

Would you demand that the church commune non-members, or people who are at odds with the church’s creed? Apparently you would – unless you are just hell-bent on defending sex perverts no matter what they want to do.

Akzed on December 30, 2011 at 2:23 PM

Well, moron, since I was making the point about how much I value freedom of association, it should have obvious to even you that I make no demands on who a church does religious activities with. And isn’t fair to call you a moron since you call gay “perverts”? And isn’t name calling so cool?

It’s a discussion board. A place where ideas are debated. Debate only becomes one-upsmanship when you’re the one losing the argument.

tommyboy on December 30, 2011 at 2:31 PM

No, I was remarking upon your continuing efforts to parse everything I write and somehow use it as a talking point supporting your argument, whatever your argument actually is. Take the Aztec chieftain story, for example. I employed it as a sort of snarky torpedo aimed below the waterline, letting you know how obnoxiously smug I think you are, which–to me–is a decidedly un-Christian trait. Your idea of witty rejoinder is to accuse me of being historically ignorant of Aztec sacrificial practices. And so on.

I could be wrong about you, tommyboy, the kind of person I think you are, and freely admit I’m often wrong about people when it comes to first impressions. But you just go on going on, reinforcing that first impression and setting it into stone.

No, it ended when the Christians showed up and began their genocide against the native people’s of the Americas. I must grant that it was very nice of the Christians to allow them to join the club before exterminating them. Dan_Yul on December 30, 2011 at 2:44 PM

So was it that they were Darwin free that made the sacrifice captives or not? By that “logic” everyone was sacrificing humans until Darwin wrote a book.

Cortez enlisted the victimized tribes the Aztecs enslaved and sacrificed to take down the Aztecs. It was an easy sell.

If the Catholic Church is unable to facilitate adoption in a non-hateful manner against gays, then other groups will have to be created to do that job.

thuja on December 30, 2011 at 2:16 PM

Would you trust your child to the Limpwrist Adoption Agency?

Knowing that homosexuals are a serious threat to children (my Church’s gay priest scandal is a case in point), I’m not sure I’d want any male child I’d put up for adoption going to one — much less two. Somebody here linked a picture of a small male child at a gay parade — dressed up nude in harness; that picture was about as chilling as any I’ve ever seen. One picture is worth 1000 words in defining the issue.

Well, moron, since I was making the point about how much I value freedom of association, it should have obvious to even you that I make no demands on who a church does religious activities with. And isn’t fair to call you a moron since you call gay “perverts”? And isn’t name calling so cool? thuja on December 30, 2011 at 2:48 PM

So, there’s no such thing as the misuse of one’s sex organs?

If you tried to eat peas with a hammer, you would be engaged in perverted dining. Or don’t you recognize any form of perversion?